Tuesday, October 30, 2012

2012 In Review - Curtis Granderson

Coming off an MVP-caliber season in 2011, Curtis Granderson was expected to regress somewhat in 2012. The regression was expected to come mainly in his power numbers, but it turned out that it came elsewhere.

The second set of projections, league average and 2011 stats are pro-rated to 2012 PA to allow a direct comparison. League average is not adjusted for DNYS so mentally account for that.

Granderson’s average projection pegged him at around 30 HRs, 32 if given his actual 2012 PA, but he ended up hitting 43, even more than last season. Unfortunately, he hit 9 fewer doubles, 5 fewer triples and 4 fewer singles which cost him about .031 in batting average. While that is partially a function of the spike in his strikeout rate (he struck out 44 more times than he projected to given the same # of PA), he also had a career low BABIP of .260. That was despite hitting more line drives (23.0% vs. 18.2%) and fewer fly balls(44.0% vs. 48.0%) than he hit in 2011 when he had a BABIP of .295. Teams were shifting on Granderson quite a bit this year which surely plays into the discrepancy although I don’t know how much more they were shifting on him this year than last year. His performance in 2012 was about 7 runs worse than his average projection and around 19 runs worse than his 2011.

Granderson was hitting .276/.394/.632 on May 1 and hit .224/.306/.468 afterwards. That’s one great month and five bad months and it made his season feel worse than it probably was.

Of course, like most of the rest of the wretched hive of Yankees Granderson had a horrific postseason. I thought he struck out 34 times in 33 AB but it was actually 16. He hit .100/.182/.200 and went 0 for the ALCS.

Granderson had his second consecutive below average defensive season according to most of the metrics. He was above average in 2009 (around +10) but was around -6 in 2009 and -15 in 2010. Trends aren’t predictive in baseball, but defense does decline as a player gets older and at this point he’s probably better suited to a corner.

My guess is that Granderson played his way out of the Yankees long-term plans with his performance from May 2 through the postseason. They picked up his option because he’s almost surely worth a one year, $13M deal. However, they may see what he could fetch in a trade although I’m not sure how much value he has given that he’s probably going to project as around a 3.0 WAR CF which is probably worth $15-18M and is only signed for one year. The low average and the fact that 26 of his 43 homers came at DNYS may cause teams to be wary about him, although he hit 30 of his 65 homers on the road in 2011 and 2010.

Granderson’s 2012 performance is probably my biggest disappointment in the non-injury, non-Nova division. He didn’t have a bad season in terms of overall value, but he didn’t have the season I hoped for and obviously his postseason speaks for itself. I was looking forward to watching him play in pinstripes for another four or five years but now while I’d be perfectly happy watching him as a Yankee in 2013 I’m more interested in seeing if he can fetch more than I think he can in a trade.

I want to see if Granderson can rebound a little bit next season and then let him go. They guy lost a step or two on defense and is not a good baserunner anymore. But still can see him rebound next year.

I’d like to see how much moving Granderson to LF and Gardner to CF would help. (I’m not asking you to run a simulation.) The strike outs were painful to watch, but I was most angry with some of the routes he took tracking down fly balls late in the season. I think it cost the Yankees big time in a few spots. Or does moving Gardner to CF negate his defensive advantage in LF while moving Granderson to LF negates his offensive advantage in CF?

Of all the people I got angry with this year I really hated getting mad at Granderson because he seems like such a nice person.

[2] Yeah, the FA rebound year. If he does rebound, anyone giving him a big offer is forewarned.

So the Yankees get swept by the Tigers, who I always thought a bit of a hollow team (actually both are hollow teams, IMO), and the Tigers get swept in turn by the Giants. Puts a smile on my face.

The Giants with two in three years show that big time every day players/contracts don’t necessarily turn into WS Championships. Pitching and the most amorphous thing of all in baseball, clutch hitting, are what win the WS.

Francessa just said that there are strong rumors of Kuroda back to the Dodgers. Who knows.

The gain from swapping Gardner and Granderson comes from increasing the number of chances Gardner would see and from decreasing the number of chances Granderson would see. You’re now comparing them to different players on offense and defense and the position adjustments should in theory account for moving them.

Let’s say Gardner’s a +15 LF and Granderson’s a -10 CF. A generic position adjustment would make Gardner a +5 CF and Granderson an average LF and you’d effectively see no difference between swapping them. But it’s possible that Gardner and/or Granderson would be better/worse in their new positions and if the Yankees want to plan for 2014 and beyond it’d be nice to know to have a better idea of just how good of a CF Gardner may be.

And I hated getting frustrated with Granderson too. I kept hoping he’d break out of it but he just never did.

[5] Agree that Granderson’s defense was noticeably bad last year and very frustrating to watch at times. It really became a pet peeve of mine. And yeah, he’s by all accounts a great guy, but had a very tough year with the strikeouts, in the field, and in the postseason.

I was looking forward to watching him play in pinstripes for another four or five years but now while I’d be perfectly happy watching him as a Yankee in 2013 I’m more interested in seeing if he can fetch more than I think he can in a trade.

Definitely. Nothing wrong with having Granderson in a corner OF spot in 2013. But certainly should see what he can bring back in a trade. Ideally of course if someone has a B+ SS prospect in (or ready for) AA, that’s what would be nice. Then said prospect hopefully in AAA before end of season, and ready for some utility work in 2014 (or if he plays well enough starting and pushing Jeter to utility). Could Granderson get a B+ prospect? Maybe. Depends on what other teams feel his worth is (I think for one year he could be valued anywhere from 2-5 WAR), where they stand on the win spectrum (do they think they’re a Granderson away from being WS contenders), and if said B+ prospect is blocked on their team. We can dream…

My current dream is if Yankees can put together a package to get Alex Gordon. I’m wondering if Nova+Warren+Adams is enough to start the conversation? KC needs pitching and Nova and Warren would probably improve them there. Adams is likely an upgrade over anything they have at 2B…basically, can the Yankees do that (or Joseph) plus any non-Williams/Austin/Heathcott/Sanchez prospect? Probably not. But I can dream.

[16] I don’t think there’s consensus on his ability to be a major-league regular, is there? He’s only 24 and has mashed in the minors, but so far his major-league record is unimpressive and UZR doesn’t think much of his fielding (SSS). I think I’ve read some mixed reviews on if people think he’s a long-term solution. For whatever reason, KC doesn’t seem to like him.